Just Sounds...

I thought this might be a good tonic as we look forward, at least in our part of the world, to the damn snow melting and our engines firing up again.
Turn it up and there is more after the jump...
From Stephane Benini of Clashproduction

Well, that blew up real good!...

A fast Corvette has a slight ...malfunction at Road Atlanta in this video by Ken Brewer...




homet

In case you are wondering...

...why it is that we have not posted much Axis generated material lately. Well, here's the thing, when you drive street cars at the track often....they break, and at the moment most of our cars are just that, busted!

The Mcoupe has a bad clutch and in need of some buffing, the Spec Boxster has a bad cam position sensor, the M3 and Exige S have some overheating issues... think the Spec e30 is also getting some work done. As fas as I know the EVO and the 997 are the only cars that is running properly at the moment and that's probably only because they are not used as often! Of course we probably all need newbrake pads and tires...

No worries we are working on the "fleet" and we'll be back in action ASAP!.

Spectacular incompetence

A while back we had dug up a 70's era home movie where hapless Germans flipped VW beetles at the Nürburgring. Fast forward to the UK in 2007, Castle Combe's own touristenfahrt and we find Charles Darwin is instructing again. I apologize in advance for the music but I cannot wait to hear comments from out JustGoFaster friends across the way...

you got to feel for the poor guy in the Lotus 9 at the end...ok, he's lucky to be alive but that is really adding insult to injury!


(credits on the clip)

Do you over-drive your mirrors?

My brother recently sent this clip of a C6 Corvette driver at Mid-Ohio. As far as we can tell, the guy is happily cranking away at his big American monster car, and his G2X (similar to a Traqmate) tells us he's turning laps in the 1:50 range. How hard is he pushing? He loses it and spins a few turns into the next lap. As the car settles, we hear a puttering sound and a MINI Cooper motors past the now-helpless American wundercar. Over on Corvette Forums, the guy claims to have "missed the gas pedal" while attempting a downshift, and claims he had just passed the MINI (although we never saw that). Is the Corvette pedal arrangement really that bad? Where's the finesse, people? Was this guy just driving his mirrors in fear of the MINI? You decide...

Rookie going to the track?

...you could do a lot worse than to read this guide by Jeff Gabel, a Genesee Valley BMW CCA member who, obviously suffering severe mental anguish during the long winter months away from the track, put together this excellent .pdf guide to the whole Driving School-Track Day thing.
And while it gets a bit sidetracked with the helmet painting, I think it's way better than any other beginners guide I have ever seen. The layout is fantastic and guess what, one of the Axis members is responsible for some of the photography, starting from the "cover" shot! Way to go badbadm...

Download The Rookie Chronicles Part I
Download The Rookie Chronicles Part II

How many lessons can be learned?

How many lessons can be learned from the very scary crash video?

Spa, Belgium October 2005. The info from the video is that someone dumped coolant at the exit of the infamous Eau Rouge complex. It's the cool down lap....



download


* Cool down does not mean "brain off", the guy in the green Caterham goes hard on the power with his outside wheel on the painted curb when you can see the dumped coolant fairly clearly. Spilled coolant is vicious.

* Cool down means you need to dial it back, not slow to a crawl but neither use the lap as your last chance to pound the car like the numbnutz unfortunate guy in the silver typeR (or is it a Civic?) cresting Eau Rouge at the limit.

* If you crash...stay in your car! The guy in the Caterham could easily have gotten killed after surviving the crash, the silver sedan smashes into him as he is getting out of his wreck.

* Not having corner workers for track days is just insane, at the very minimum there should be light signals. At our most recent Watkins Glen week end I got to see in action the flashing yellow traffic light type signals for the first time. Let me tell you, you DON'T miss those, no way. A truly great safety feature.

Keep it shiny!

UPDATE: an alert but anonymous reader points out that in fact it was an open track day so the "cool down" really applies to the Caterham alone. However I think the lessons still apply.

11/10ths all the time.

is what I would do, what we all would do, if we had access to a track like Paul Ricard. Taking the theory of paved runoffs to the logical extreme, it's not wonder that Bernie Ecclestone's circuit in southern France is a favourite of car companies that have to hand over their supercars to ham fisted journalists.

Explore the map below to see how it it would be essentially impossible to do any damage to anything even remotely street legal on such a track.
Of course one might argue that the vast expanse of asphalt makes the track devoid of any character and charm. True, but I would trade that for a chance at experience impunity!

Below is a video courtesy of "Dr.Stringfella" from Track4fun.com in Italy. He is driving his Flying Carrot Westfield Xtr2 which he used to own. I'm not 100% sure what he's driving now, maybe he'll drop by and set the record straight.
Notice the quirky track day mix: an F3000 and Alfa TZ and a bunch of spec Caterhams all on the track at the same time!


download

More sweet GT3 sounds...

Here is another 997GT3 video from the same guy below. This time he is at the Varano circuit near Parma and it looks like he is having a blast dicking around towards the end of the lap (I can imagine the b-forum outrage now.... )....nice car control actually.

Again I have to observe how benign this car seems at the limit.


r/click here to download

Porsche 997 GT3 track day video

I don't think I've seen a track day video from a new 997 gt3 yet. This one is from Italy, Milano in fact, my home town. Maxige.com.




r/click here to download


Even though the video is frustrating as you just want to rip that rear view mirror off or move the damn camera lower, I must say this new GT3 sounds especially sweet and seems to behave very benignly. Wonderful car.
The track is Rijeka, in Croatia. You have seen this track before in the FXX and Enzo videos posted before on this site.

Enjoy.

Check out more of this car on the post above this one

Data Logging getting more and more mainstream.

I can see a day in the future where these things will become as popular as video cameras at track days, it's a no brainer because they truly can teach, empirically.
You don't have to convince us about it (well OK, Stee did have to convince us, but thanks to him we "go it") and it's great to see Traqmate getting great exposure like this.

Check out the February issue of Grassroots Motorsports for more details.

The off season sucks, let's peek at some European tracks.

I blatantly stole this video from Track4fun.com, the italian track day organizer. Now look at how gorgeous the Mas Du Clos a small semi private circuit in France is.

Some may recognize it from some Top Gear and Fifth Gear episodes. I love the switchback sections and how the track is a manicured park, awesome.

Make sure to plan for it on your next trip to Europe!

Summit Bombastic

We had such a good time recently ay Summit Point with the RTR-PCA that I just had to put together this silly 2 minute video, guaranteed to make your sideburns grow and have you craving for some 70's german sportswear.

No rodents were hurt in the making of this clip, not a small feat at Summit Point.



Please right/opt click to download

Here is a mirror link if the one above is too slow

Please note that if you have trouble playing these files it might mean you have not upgraded your QuickTime since the late 90s....It may be time!

More video from Summit Point

here are a couple more track videos from the Reisentoter Porsche Club days at Summit Point.

In the first one CG in the Lotus Elise shows the true meaning of carrying speed into corners and keeping those squirrels in the engine bay pedaling furiously.


Click on picture above or
right/opt click to download


In the other AC shows the crack ho joy of having sticky Kumhos v710s weeeeeeeee!


Click on picture above or
right/opt click to download

Summit Point Rocks!

just a quick post from the hotel room... Thanks to Walter and his awesome course and line explanation over in the AXIS FORUMS and Stee's M3 videos from his last time there with NASA, I felt comfortable right away here at Summit. The RTR PCA folks are very friendly and mostly courteous though they must have wondered who the madman in the funny looking car is...:)


Click on picture above or
right/opt click to download


Click on picture above or
right/opt click to download

How to torture a 911

CG will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure this is NOT the "correct" way to drive a 911.

However it sure looks like our friend "Luke Duke" from Track4fun.com had a blast beating the crap out of this rental!

I think this is a video from (dr.) Johnathan Palmer's track day empire over in the UK.

Palmer Sport.

Curiously the cars are automatics...


Click on picture above or
right/opt click to download

A few laps of Lime Rock with a bit of rain.

Just wanted to post this if anything to say I was surprised for once to find that Lime Rock at times CAN actually have some grip when it's damp. This was especially odd since the track in the dry feld like it had a little less grip than usual.

CG and I were there at an SCDA track day last Tuesday and after two dry sessions a light rain came. From previous experience we assumed that LRP would immediately turn into the nasty ice rink it tends to become before real rain has a chance to wash away the crud.

When I went out for the session I was ...how shall I put this...super-extra-woosie? ahem...I mean cautious. The ambient was cooler than earlier in the day so I put more air in the tires to get them to warm up more quickly, still for the first couple of laps the car felt very nervous. After about 6 or seven laps the tires started to warm up and grip returned and in the end I did a 1:03.450 lap in that session which is respectable.

I had some fun with two BMW guys there, one doing a great job hustling an e39 M5 battleship around the track and the other (Ilyia I think is his name) flogging a red e46M3. Kudos to those two for hustling and keeping it well on the road.
At the end of the session I had to give them some honorary Axis stickers, hope they put them on the cars!

I used Traqmate data overlaid over video using TrackVision software. It's maybe not 100% sync'd but it's close.


Click on window or R/Opt-Click here to download

pictures from Tracktime Photos
as always, thanks Stee for the use of your Traqmate...

Live Blogging from Lime Rock...

CG and I are at Lime Rock today and ...mega cool, they have free WiFi in the paddock. So, we are waiting to go out for our first session, can't promise we'll upload video but we'll try for data from out Traqmate units (thanks Stee!)


UPDATE

Session one went fine, weather held out but the track was extremely slippery for some reason. Best time 1:03.000 for me 1:03.600 for CG in the Elise.
However, I'm an idiot, I mounted the Traqmate sensor unit backwards so all my data is upside down.... my bad! :)

more later....

UPDATE 2

OK, blogging from a race track might seem like a good idea in a geeky way but in reality, it's retarded. At least without planning. There is just too much to do and things to check. That and the batteries for one thing or another are always dying at the wrong time. Bah

I think for me today was more about consistency than speed. In session 2 we did 19 laps (plus one warm up and one cool down) Of those I did 12@ 1:03.xxx, 4 @ 1:04.xxx and 3 @ 1:05 presumably finding some traffic. Best that session was 1:03.100, my best for the day was 1:03.000 in session 1.

Session 3 and 4 were wet. CG and I skipped 3 but I went out for 4. It was quite slipery for the first few laps and I had to let a bunch of cars by but the tires finally came up to "some" temperature and i picked up speed. In the end I managed a 1:03.450 on the damp track.... I proud of that one. Pirellis make for a good intermediate tire.

Video and graphs tomorrow...

A close shave...

This clip by BadBadM during last week end's NASA race at Summit Point will put hair on your chest. He will have a full write up about his week end later in the week.



Click on window above
iTunes should download this

How about some lurid oversteer?

We got tons of great video from last Saturday's PDA/NASA day at Pocono. We ran the "Double infield" course for the first time and it was a blast. Super high speed into real freaky turns you need to slow down 50/60 mph for, NICE. Add in bumps and one real good chance to get some air while attempting to turn and it makes for an exciting lap.
More on all that later including our first ever "Track day Clown" nomination. But for now enjoy this clip of me engaging in some lurid, lurid sliding. Now that the car has it's rear sway bar properly welded on it is soooo much more lively and much more fun to drive and I definitively did my part for the A.o.O honors.
On a tech note, I have to say that the work I did on the brakes really paid off, I had no issues what so ever with them other than maybe over braking at times because I was not used to the effectiveness.

click on the window below and smell the Pirellis!


iTunes will download this for your iPod.